Anyone watch the Student Grant produced edition of Question Time tonight? Was it just me or was the ethnicity mix of the audience seriously disproportionate to the UK population? Again. Maybe it was Grange Hill that provided the student numbers? I thought the student on the panel was mostly sensible but the left wing hectoring of the failed “Apprentice” women Saira “Bless Gordon” Khan was dreadful to behold. (Say “Oil” and you get a big cheer) IDS did well, wee Dougie Alexander was abysmal and the Lib-Dem was nice but dim. Wonder what you made of the wild cheers from the audience when it was pointed out how disgraceful it was that black people were seven times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people? I suppose pointing out that knife crime is endemic in certain black areas would be too obvious an answer? The good news is that this weekly horror show is now off our screens to the Autumn! Thank god for summertime!
QUESTION TIME WATCH.
Bookmark the permalink.
“gunnar | 11.07.08 – 1:30 am | #
tosser
Anonymous | 11.07.08 – 5:54 pm | ”
Oh dear,oh dear,Anonymous,that should be,
Tosser.Or if you wish to be more emphatic,Tosser! Perhaps even, TOSSER!
We have some seriously funny people on here…we should try for a radio 4 comedy slot…featuring gunnar.
Don’t be so silly, thud! The BBC’s 6.30 ‘comedy’ slot is reserved for agitprop and polemic. The last thing R4 wants is laughter.
The best population stats I can find http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273 show the UK is 92.1% ‘white’. That’s higher than I expected.
In London the proportion is 71.2% http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/H-A.asp
London has the highest proportion of ‘muslims’ in the UK at 8.5% compared with 58% ‘Christian’ http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp
Others can comment on how representative QT is.
91% white is higher than I would have expected as well. But I have lived mostly in urban areas and not always the most afluent urban areas.
Even if we assume a million illegals and two million eastern Europeans who are not counted as ethnic minorities we are left with 85% plus as white British natives.
Has anybody done a survey of BBC on screen faces to see if 85% of them are white British?
We are told that 10% of the male population of the contry are men who get turned on by buggering other men. I have always thought that is a very high estimate but even assuming that it is true just counting the self confessed gays on the BBC I am sure they are more than 10% of male presenters, if we add on the ones that appear to be gay I am sure it would be closer to 25%.
The BBC represents the country as they want it to be not as it is.
Ron Todd:
91% white is higher than I would have expected as well. But I have lived mostly in urban areas and not always the most afluent urban areas.
So by those stats 9 in 10 faces we see on TV should be white?
Mmmm, that’s funny. It doesn’t look like that on my TV.
Perhaps we should ask people if they get turned on by buggering other men in a census? How does that idea grab you?
Or maybe the BBC could just everyone applying for a job if they too get turned on by buggering other men. Then turn them down for the job if they are beyond their quota?
This post is spot on. It could have been taken verbatim from the comments being made around my office on Friday morning.
Any Questions on R4 was as bad or maybe even worse. Some bright spark in the audience said that knife crime is a result of “the middle classes sending their children to private schools” (to the usual applause).
Work that one out!
And there was me thinking knife crime was one of the reasons for going private.
The Gordon Brown fan club were also in full attendance judging by the applause when anyone spoke in his favour.
The BBC have really mastered the art of audience selection.
hmm – if thats the ethnic make up of london then how come most of the “ethnic” audience members had left wing and anti uk/us politics -what a coincidence. Where were all the Polski? Or is it that they have not very “right on ” views?
Hmmm
Some bright spark in the audience said that knife crime is a result of “the middle classes sending their children to private schools” (to the usual applause).
And here’s me thinking Brave New Britain Crime is the result of 40 years of the average BBC Question Time lefty panelist getting their way on “law and order”.
Leftists, socialists, liberals, nanny-state do-gooders, the BBC… if you wish to see their monument… LOOK AROUND.
pounce:
I did like how the crowd roared with approval over Miss Khans recommendation that the other Middle Eastern countries should communicate with Iran rather than Western countries.
Yeah, it seems to have passed by these ignorant dimwit dhimmis, is how the Persians and the Arabs historically despise each other.
And when (and it is when, not if) Israel and/or the USA does take out the Iranian nuclear facilities, those cheering (secretly) most, will be at least half the Arab states in the region.
PacificRising | 13.07.08 – 1:24 pm |
This post is spot on. It could have been taken verbatim from the comments being made around my office on Friday morning.
Any Questions on R4 was as bad or maybe even worse.
Out of curiosity, in what sort of business, generally speaking, do you work? Anyone in the BBC’s preferred target audience? It would be interesting to know just how far off the mark the really are.
David Preiser,
Our business is distribution of electrical components.
Who are the BBC’s target audience?
Isn’t it supposed to be licence fee payers, or is that a bit naive.
Joel
I am not proposing that the bbc does not employ any gays front of camera, just that as with ethnic minorities they are trying to create a false impression of the make up of the British population.
I expect that if the bbc did recruit simply on merit that there well might be more gay performers than the numbers in the general population would suggest, but not to the extent where the number of gay presenters/newsreaders etc almost matches the number of white male hetrosexuals.
As for the census probably unnecessary given the amount of information the government has on us all and the number of people that move between nu labour and the bbc they probably have a full life history of any prospective employee before they walk through the door.
Haven’t they been boasting recently about their creepy database where did they get the information for that.
Who enforces the rule that I cannot go into a shop and buy a cheap set top box without giving my name and address if not the government.
PacificRising | 13.07.08 – 1:24 pm |
“the middle classes sending their children to private schools” (to the usual applause).
Work that one out!
The, somewhat, laughable idea is that all the Tarquins and Ruperts will have to go to State run schools and that, by some magical process, like osmosis, their erudition and higher standards of behaviour will rub off on the oiks and make them into working class heroes. Somehow.
‘If only we all could be middle class’ etc.
Naturally if this was the situation the middle class comps would simply improve and those kids from the ‘lower’ orders, who are lucky enough to get into one, will end up pushed out into the sink schools.
It’s complete bollox of cause but it drives much of how the liberal/left ‘elite’ thinking on education. And education is, of cause, the only reason the middle classes outshine the working classes in child case…
PacificRising | 13.07.08 – 5:42 pm |
Isn’t it supposed to be licence fee payers, or is that a bit naive.
Yes, unfortunately. I was referring to the demographics they aim for to increase viewing numbers, as if they were chasing the same groups TV advertisers do. They stopped caring about any obligation specifically to license fee slaves years ago, unless Culture Minister Hodge needs an excuse to start cutting Western European music from the Proms ‘cos that ain’t “inclusive” enough.
If yours is an average, casual white-collar-ish office, and anything like the couple of similar companies I’ve worked with (presumably in one of those industrial office zones, if you’re attached to a warehouse), then the age and income demographics should cover a nice range of favorite BBC/TV marketing-type targets. Which means they’ve missed badly.
I find that interesting.
I come into contact with many people from board level to warehouse (and not just within my company) and I can say they never subscribe to the PC attitudes exhibited by the majority in a typical Question Time audience. Quite the opposite.
It would be interesting to have a QT without submitting the audience to the BBC filtering procedure, and not having people bused in to make up the quotas.
I think the political classes would be shocked to see how many actually agree with Norman Tebbit.